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A Systematic Review of Formative Assessment to Support Students Learning Computer Programming

Authors Jagadeeswaran Thangaraj , Monica Ward , Fiona O’Riordan

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Author Details

Jagadeeswaran Thangaraj
  • School of Computing, Dublin City University, Ireland
Monica Ward
  • School of Computing, Dublin City University, Ireland
Fiona O’Riordan
  • Teaching Enhancement Unit, Dublin City University, Ireland

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Jagadeeswaran Thangaraj, Monica Ward, and Fiona O’Riordan. A Systematic Review of Formative Assessment to Support Students Learning Computer Programming. In 4th International Computer Programming Education Conference (ICPEC 2023). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 112, pp. 7:1-7:13, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2023) https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.ICPEC.2023.7

Abstract

Formative assessment aims to increase student understanding, instructor instruction, and learning by providing feedback on students' progress. The goal of this systematic review is to discover trends on formative assessment techniques used to support computer programming learners by synthesizing literature published between 2013 and 2023. 17 articles that were peer-reviewed and published in journals were examined from the initial search of 197 studies. According to the findings, all the studies were conducted at the higher education level and only a small number at the secondary school level. Overall, most studies found that motivation, scaffolding, and engagement were the three main goals of feedback, with less research finding that metacognitive goals were the intended outcomes. The two techniques for facilitating formative feedback that were used most frequently were compiler or testing based error messages and customised error messages. The importance of formative feedback is highlighted in the reviewed articles, supporting the contention that assessments used in programming courses should place a heavy emphasis on motivating students to increase their level of proficiency. This study also suggests a formative assessment that employs an adaptive strategy to evaluate the ability level of the novice students and motivate them to learn programming to acquire the necessary knowledge.

Subject Classification

ACM Subject Classification
  • Applied computing → Education
  • Social and professional topics → Computing education
  • Social and professional topics → Student assessment
Keywords
  • Automatic assessment
  • Computer programming
  • Formative assessment
  • Higher education
  • Novice programmer
  • Systematic review

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